Genius, Billionaire, Totally Not A Superhero
by Tony Stark's Hidden Side
Summary: Tony managed not to let anyone know who was actually flying the Iron Man suit. (Except Obadiah Stane, and we all know how THAT turned out.) How long can he keep his identity a secret while he works with the Avengers as Tony Stark AND as Iron Man? Besides, technically Tony Stark isn't supposed to be an Avenger under any circumstances. ((Basically fun identity porn and friendship.))
1. Chapter 1

**A/N - Hi guys! It's another Tony-centric story! (WHAT A SURPRISE!) For those of you who are new here, check out my profile for 2 Tony-centric kidnapping stories, a thing that also has Bucky in it, and a bunch of introspective oneshots about anything and everything... but mostly Tony.**

 **BUT YOU'RE HERE FOR THE IDENTITY-PORN (just an expression, this is not rated M) SO LET'S HAVE AT IT!**

It was proving more difficult by the day to keep the secret.

And yet, every day, it was proving more vital.

Iron Man was gaining more and more fame as an Avenger as well as Tony's bodyguard, and more and more people were starting to speculate on everything from a potential relationship between them to the absurd idea that there really was nobody inside the suit.

The whole problem was attracting far too much attention, and in the meanwhile, Tony had to confront an unfortunate dichotomy: he had to remember which of the team liked Iron Man, and which liked Tony Stark.

He quickly realized it wasn't difficult, seeing as only Clint and Bruce actually liked his unsuited personality. He blamed his SHIELD file and his tendency to be drunk when the others ran into him as Tony.

Still, was it ever nice to have a lab partner, and Clint appreciated his sense of humor. He couldn't count the number of times the archer had managed to cheer him up just by snorting at one of his ill-timed jokes.

Iron Man saw the team a lot more, and got along with most of them a _lot_ better. When Natasha met him in the suit for the first time, she admitted she was impressed with how professional he actually was. "Knowing Stark, I would have expected some excited flyboy…"

"This is one of the biggest technological marvels of our age - and extremely dangerous in amateur hands," Tony had replied. "Believe me, Stark considered self-control important."

She had smiled then, and he couldn't remember her smiling at him outside the suit, not even once unless it was a smirk. "Glad to hear it."

Meeting Steve had been a shock to Tony, because the first time they met (outside the suit) they got on each other's nerves _instantly_. When they had met as Iron Man and Captain America, however, Tony found two extraordinary things.

The first was that Cap liked him, and the second, even more astonishing, was that _he_ liked _Cap._ He was honestly impressed with the man's leadership and his willingness to take risks for the team, and it definitely helped that Howard wasn't really a topic of conversation.

He first used his nickname for Steve while in the suit. "Capsicle, I'm going to get into that rotor and jump-start it. Then I need you to save me, okay?"

"Okay, Iron Man. How?" Steve hadn't even noticed the nickname until maybe the third or fourth time he used it, and then he gave a genuine laugh. From then on, of course, the nickname could only be an Iron Man thing, but Tony didn't mind much. It was enough that he could get along with the man in battle.

Thor and Iron Man had gotten off on the wrong foot, but after an offhand comment of "No hard feelings, Point Break," neither of them held any grudge. After hearing how Iron Man had managed to save the Helicarrier, he had even managed to earn a little respect from the Asgardian. They had each other's backs in battle, that was what mattered. Thor didn't even _meet_ Tony outside the suit until later, and they mostly only talked about Thor's skill at breaking electronic appliances (after Thor managed to break six in one day).

Bruce was another story entirely, and a welcome one. The first time they met, it had been outside the suit, and Tony had instantly started annoying him by prying beneath his calm demeanor, even to the point of jabbing him in the side with a lab tool.

And Bruce didn't mind.

And then he realized what Tony was doing, showing the team he had a tight lid on the Hulk as well as incautiously proving that Tony _trusted him,_ and he saw the moment it clicked because Bruce turned, took a blueberry, and gave him a small smile. After that, Tony eased up a little, point made. He really did trust the man, to the point where Iron Man even vouched for him after his disappearance. "He'll be here." And so he was.

Iron Man gained Clint's respect pretty much instantly, the first time they met. That was mostly because they met practically in the heat of battle, when the two of them had the most information about the situation at any given moment. The communication was nearly perfect, because honestly, Tony's brain in combat worked a lot like an archer's, mainly focused on targets and trajectories (instead of individual enemies like Natasha and Steve). Therefore, when Clint told him to do something, Tony did it, and vice versa.

Outside the suit, Clint started out aloof, and Tony blamed it on Natasha's assessment of him. That still stung. After a few days of witnessing his immature humor, however, Clint warmed up to him a bit. Tony liked to think of it as a relationship based on friendship instead of actual trust, and that was okay with him, because that made Clint a lot like Rhodey. Rhodey didn't trust Tony, but they sure had a good time when they ended up in the same room, and so did Tony and Clint.

Still, it was downright _strange._ With Pepper, she only spoke to Tony, so there was no conflict there. Rhodey was a lot the same, they had only fought together once. Mostly, people in SHIELD knew Tony, and only a select few ever worked with Iron Man. Not the mention the fact that while Tony was almost dangerously loquacious, Iron Man was… kinda quiet.

The Avengers, on the other hand, worked with both of them, which quickly became annoying. It was _hard_ to greet Steve and receive a cooler look than he had gotten just a few minutes before when he was ensconced in a suit of armor. It was _strange_ to have Clint barking not-quite-orders in his ear without any of the inside jokes he and Tony had. It was unnerving to have Thor coming to Iron Man for help understanding what Tony told him,

And don't even get him _started_ on Natasha. They avoided each other like the plague outside of battle, but when she saw Iron Man, she tended to practically throw her life into his hands. More than once, she had yelled for him to catch her when she was already midair.

Then. Then there was Bruce. And that was just _complicated._

Bruce was grateful to Tony for having faith in him, and worked with him in the lab, and came to him whenever he had questions. He knew Iron Man really only in passing.

But the _Hulk,_ Tony suspected, thought of them as the same person. He couldn't be too surprised, because Bruce wasn't used to having anyone trust him automatically, but both Tony and Iron Man had done it. At least subconsciously, Bruce _knew._

So it really didn't bother Tony that Bruce was the first to learn.

 **SHOUTOUT TO THE OTHER FEW PEOPLE WHO WRITE STORIES LIKE THESE. I think I'll point you guys toward one story a chapter. So, go check out "5 Times Someone Found Tony Stark and 1 Time They Didn't Have To" by Elizabird, because it's the most similar to this story in layout.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N - Hi! It's me again! With more Identity Times featuring Tony "Totally Not Iron Man" Stark!**

It was really a matter of necessity. Eventually, someone was going to find out - he had accepted that almost as soon as the Avengers agreed to move in with them. Tony decided that when the time came, he would make the most of the situation and at least get to choose who it was that learned (and make sure it wasn't Natasha).

When the time came, he had every option available. A critical malfunction in the arc reactor, however, ruled out Thor immediately. It was a job for two people, neither of which broke delicate electronics on a daily basis.

Tony was just relieved that the person best qualified to help was the person he honestly _wanted_ to tell. He didn't spend too much time on grinning, though, because his _heart_ was broken, and he should probably hurry up with the solution.

"Hey, Brucie?" He poked his head into the lab next door and shot the man a quick grin. "Can you keep a secret? And help me with a science thing?"

Bruce was wearing safety goggles, but Tony could still see his eyebrows raise a few centimeters. "Science thing, huh? No problem, but… is the secret anything dangerous?"

Tony laughed. "Only if it gets out. Don't worry, it's not even illegal." He wondered how many times he'd asked Bruce's help on illegal activities, because the scientist actually looked relieved to hear it wasn't that. He covered two beakers and followed Tony.

"All right, why are we going to the Iron Man lab?" When he didn't get an answer, Bruce just shrugged and walked in, admiring not the armor but the large holographic table.

"I can put one of those in your lab if you want, they're so much fun to use, it's amazing, you can put your hand in the glove model and it'll _move_ with you, I should definitely patent the tech but I don't want the Board of Directors all over me to sell it-" Tony cut himself off and blushed. "I'm babbling, right? I do that when I'm nervous."

Bruce slowly nodded, not really paying attention, instead examining the giant holographic model of the arc reactor. "Wow, is this the battery for the suit? What's the red stuff, shrapnel from the battle?" He peered closer.

"Well, you've certainly gotten the the problem fast," Tony muttered, spinning the diagram so that the highlighted metal was more visible. "Yes, that's shrapnel, and no, that isn't exactly the battery for the suit. It's a miniaturized arc reactor, as I'm sure you've guessed, but it isn't built into the suit… it's built into the _pilot._ "

It took a full two minutes for Bruce to figure out how to respond to that.

When he finally did, the stuttered words were, "That's _horrible,_ and probably a human rights violation. Why the hell did you put the damn thing in the _pilot?_ I don't even want to think about the medical implications…"

"I didn't," Tony answered, and without any warning, he yanked off his shirt.

Boy, had that been a _bitch_ to keep secret from Natasha. Luckily he was used to keeping it secret from _everyone,_ including Pepper and Rhodey. Unfortunately, he had been dying from the damned thing at the time, and he'd had to solve the problem on his own.

It had been damn close.

Bruce was staring in wide-eyed wonder, and Tony gave a brief summary of the 'installation' of the reactor, avoiding mentioning Yinsen's name or the fact that he'd been awake for most of the surgery. He also avoided telling Bruce just how _deep_ it went.

"So…" Bruce asked _fifteen questions,_ including Tony's level of pain, before he got to the question most would have asked immediately. "So you're… Iron Man?"

"That's a yes, congratulations, you win the grand prize of having a secret that could get me in a whole lot of trouble." Tony smirked. "The Other Guy already knew, I'm pretty sure - or else why would he have caught the suit?"

The Battle of New York still haunted him. He had come extremely close to dying, and even closer to losing his secret identity. Steve told him after the battle that Clint had stopped Thor from removing the suit's mask. The next time Iron Man was around Clint, sincere thanks were offered and subsequently brushed off with a smile.

"So… wait, all the time when Steve is bad-mouthing you around the team…" Bruce genuinely laughed, though he looked embarrassed at the same time somehow. "Wait, you've _joined in_ sometimes, oh my god, we're all just watching you insulting yourself in a funny voice."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Tony chuckled. "Now, you've realized of course that there's metal in the arc reactor stopping it from working like it's supposed to. I need to make a new arc reactor in under four hours, and it's complicated as all get out, so I really need your help."

Bruce just nodded and put his safety goggles back on.

Tony _knew_ there was a reason he liked the guy. Both sides of him.

Luckily, they managed to complete the reactor with nearly half an hour to spare before Tony had to worry about the shrapnel in his chest. "Thanks, Bruce. Usually I have a spare one for emergencies, but the suit took a real beating the last few battles." And maybe Tony had also been looking for an excuse to bring Banner in on his secret, because he was getting a little starved for real relationships lately, but he would never say that aloud.

"No problem. Look, let me know if you need anything, okay? I haven't missed the fact that you said nobody knows about this but us," Bruce gave him a shrewd look, "and I'm suspecting that includes doctors. Plus I don't like the idea of you doing unsupervised self-surgery."

Tony grinned. "I think you'll find stopping me from being an idiot is a full-time job, Doctor Banner. Maybe you'd better just stick to making sure I don't die?"

"Not on your life, you've managed to get stuck with me now, I still have too many questions about that thing," Bruce retorted, and wasn't overly surprised when Tony immediately needed a hug. "Do you plan on telling the team?"

"Nope, and I'm hoping you don't, either, because I like my head attached and Natasha is on the team in case you've forgotten about that," Tony said.

It was the truth, he didn't have _any_ plans to tell another soul on Earth about the man inside the mask. Then again, he also knew what they said about the best laid plans of mice and men.

So honestly? It didn't exactly shock him when he realized he was going to have to spill the beans again. He was just glad that, of the two SHIELD agents, it was the one _not_ about to rip his head off without provocation.

 **A/N - SHOUTOUT to another Secret Identity fanfiction: "In a strange world" by** **niewypowiedziane!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N - On the offchance any of you actually read that Elizabird fanfiction I recommended in the first chapter, yes, I** _ **am**_ **aware that this chapter shares similarities to the Barton chapter of that story. I wanted to reverse their positions. Because CLINT.**

Telling Clint wasn't as easy as telling Bruce had been. And by that, Tony meant he had less than a minute to decide whether or not to admit his identity to the archer, not hours like he had when the reactor was malfunctioning.

Man, he _wished_ the reactor was malfunctioning again. Better that than being trapped under a building with a very badly bleeding archer and an electrified suit.

As was the case with most of the big problems in Tony's life lately, it was all Victor Von Doom's fault. Him and his _stupid Doombots._ Seriously, "Doombots?" Not only was the name tacky, but they seemed to be attacking every other week, and the latest version was… well, very electrical, and very annoying.

Suffice it to say, he'd never thought his suit could hold a fatal charge, but that was exactly what it was doing thanks to whatever the hell he'd been sprayed with before the bots had piled on, before the building had collapsed, and before Clint had taken a metal pole straight through his stomach and started bleeding out all over the rubble-strewn ground.

"I said, stay _awake,_ damn it." Tony was about to put pressure on the wound when he remembered. "Damn it, my suit is all electrified, I can't touch you!"

The archer looked up at him with eyes that were starting to glaze over from the pain. "Can you take the gloves off?" he slurred, trying to gesture and then thinking better of it.

"I'd love to, but whatever they put on this thing, it's made a lot of the joints seize and a lot of the outer panelling stick together. The only way to get any part of this thing off is to hit the emergency button and blow the whole damn suit."

That's when he realized that Clint probably couldn't understand him at this point, especially if he started rambling about technical aspects.

Steve was talking in his ear, saying that his backup suit was already there and that the team should get through the rubble in about five minutes, and two facts struck Tony at exactly the same time. The first was simple, that the battle was over, since the whole team was working to dig them out of the building.

The second was simpler. Five minutes was too long for Clint unless that wound got pressure on it, and quickly. He stood up and took two steps back. "Capsicle, I have to blow the suit. Keep the press back, in case I don't notice you coming."

"You _what?_ What's going on in there?"

He was procrastinating, he realized, wasting seconds that Clint just _didn't have._ "Jarvis, emergency override, delta two nine I'm Screwed." Tony prided himself on original codes.

A moment later, very tiny charges were detonating stuck plates, pieces of metal were falling all around him, and he had to be very careful not to touch any of them, considering the electricity. It took half a minute just to get his hands and arms completely free. He used to time to speak rapid-fire to Steve, glad that the voice-distorter wasn't built into the suit. "Clint got skewered, he's bleeding out, and my suit is electrified. I'm blowing it off so I can get pressure on the wound, buy you that five minutes to get to us."

There was a lot moment of silence on the comms, punctuated only by Russian swearing. After a few moments, Bruce quietly asked, "Is Clint conscious?"

"Bruce, yay, you're back, we're going to need you." FInally, _finally_ the suit was off, and he shoved his hands on Clint's side as hard as he could. The pole had very much not stopped the bleeding, like it always did in the movies, and his hands were stained completely red within seconds. He looked into Clint's wide-open eyes, fixated firmly on his face, and he lied to Bruce and the rest of the team. "No, Barton is unconscious right now, I'll let you know if that changes."

Clint was apparently aware enough to smirk at that. He knew Tony's reasons - if SHIELD knew that one of their agents had seen beneath the Iron Man mask, they would demand to know, and then the secret would be so widespread it wouldn't even be worth keeping.

The archer did, in fact, pass out shortly thereafter. It took only four minutes before Tony realized they were breaking through. It was a good thing his latest models of the Iron Man suit broke into pieces to get to him, or else someone might have entered the tiny space before he was fully covered. After all, it wasn't like he could run and hide, not until someone's hands were ready to take the place of his own. He would be damned if he was going to let Clint die after he'd already blown his cover, and his suit, to save him.

Bruce was the first in, followed instantly by Natasha, but it was Steve's hands that slipped over the red gauntlets of the suit and allowed Tony to stand and move back. The supersoldier was more than qualified to press really hard on things, meanwhile Tony could finally whip out his super cool suit laser and cut through the metal pole still skewering Clint. Once most of the pole was gone and cast to the side, SHIELD medics finally managed to move the archer onto a stretcher and evacuate him.

They all had different ways of showing they were worried. Natasha refused to relax a single muscle in her body, Steve looked like someone kicked his puppy, Thor paced, Bruce fidgeted relentlessly, and Iron Man actually explained exactly what had happened, in more detail than was strictly necessary. When Tony got nervous, he _talked,_ not even being Iron Man changed that. He was speaking so quickly at one point that even Natasha told him to slow down.

"Sorry," he was glad nobody could see him wince inside the suit, "it's been a long day." And it really, really had. The number of people who knew his identity was now four, counting himself and his AI, which probably shouldn't count.

All because Clint couldn't keep his damn blood in his body.

None of which mattered, of course, when their teammate came back only three days later due to his hatred of hospitals. Clint was as pale as a vampire and couldn't even stand up on his own, and pitifully tired practically all the time. He could barely keep solid food down but was always thirsty, and didn't say a word to Tony for the first day, mostly because he and Tony were never alone together. Natasha was hovering practically all the time, but even she had to sleep eventually, and so thirty-one hours after his exhausted return, Clint and Tony were alone.

It took half an hour before the archer finally said, "So."

"So, yourself." Was he blushing? His cheeks felt hot. He _hated_ this part, and it was only the second time he'd done it. "Er… I don't suppose you have amnesia?"

"Sorry," said Clint, and his voice was quiet and a little bit raspy but the grin on his face was stronger than usual. "I just can't _believe_ it, Stark, you have two SHIELD agents living in your damn house! What made you think you could pull this off?"

Now he was _definitely_ blushing. "I had a girlfriend for three months, and Natasha investigated me while I was dying of palladium poisoning and never found out that I had a battery in my chest, so I figured I could keep it up as long as I needed to even with-" he broke off, he actually lifted his hands to cover his mouth.

He'd _said that out loud._

"God, shit, nobody knows about that last bit, shit," he met Clint's steady gaze and instantly relaxed a little bit. "You… you aren't actually going to tell anyone, are you."

It was all clear in Clint's eyes, but he said it aloud anyway. "The only reason we're having this discussion, or _any_ discussion, is because you saved my life by taking off that suit," he said simply, and then he frowned. "So, you were _dying_ when Natasha was undercover?"

"We're talking days, not months." His face had to be as red as a tomato. "I almost told her just so I could get some help, but I was a stubborn idiot and decided to keep it to myself. She still thinks that was normal Tony Stark behavior… she reads too many tabloids."

"So, uh, who else knows that you're," he hesitated and then seemed to relish saying the words out loud, "that _Tony Stark is Iron Man?"_ He laughed, practically giggled, at the words.

Tony decided to laugh, too. Some of the tension bled out of the conversation. "All right, you ready for this? There's four people in the world who know this secret."

"You, me, Pepper, Rhodes?" The guess was good, but not good enough.

"You, me, JARVIS, Bruce." He smirked at the shock on Clint's face. "Now a full half of the Avengers is in on the secret, I guess. Perks of having a small team."

Clint paused for a second, cocked his head to the side, and smiled. "Morning, Natasha." The redhead lifted her head blearily. She hadn't even shown signs of waking, but Clint knew her better than anyone on the planet. As Tony stood to leave, Clint said calmly, "Seriously, though, see if Iron Man can stop by soon. I really would like to thanks him in person."

Oh. Of course. It was ridiculous for Iron Man _not_ to check up on an injured teammate after 'almost' getting his cover blown. Tony hadn't even thought about it.

It sounded like having Clint in on the secret would be just as useful as Bruce, even if it had been an accident this time.

He hadn't had much of a choice in the matter, but that turned out all right.

It was all right, because things got a lot better after that.

 **A/N - This is going to be more than "one person finds out each chapter," because I need MORE than 8 or 9 chapters to this.**

 **SHOUTOUT to another Secret Identity fanfiction: "Love All of Me" by samptra. (This one is Stony - Steve/Tony - so if you don't like slash fiction, don't read it.)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N - So, I should be waiting a day to post this, since it's only been 4 hours since my last update.**

 **But this chapter doesn't have anyone discovering "the big secret" and I just wrote it and I'm** ** _super happy_** **that I managed to write this much today, so I'm going to do it anyway.**

 **Have some :3 friendship :3**

Bruce _understood_ him. It had taken him a little while, sure, to really learn all the little idiosyncrasies of Tony Stark, but he had made the effort. He had taken the time, asked all the right questions, pushed all the right buttons.

It was the culmination of a process that had begun the instant Tony introduced himself, complimenting the physicist's work and then flippantly mentioning the Hulk like he wasn't the first thing everyone thought of when they heard the name "Bruce Banner."

It was the climax of something that had started when Tony was just messing around on the Helicarrier, and just to test a theory, poked Bruce in the side and gave him an electric shock. It was less to see if the Hulk would emerge, and more to assure Bruce that Tony knew he had everything under control. Even when everyone else doubted.

He should have known when the Hulk came barreling out of nowhere (as Clint described it) to catch the Iron Man suit in New York. After all, Tony was absolutely _certain_ that Bruce's mean green alter ego had never seen a difference between Tony and Iron Man.

He would have to look into that.

At some point, amidst all the fights and the scientific breakthroughs and the times Bruce had gotten up at four in the morning because Tony had an epiphany and desperately needed to talk about it (or else his brain wouldn't shut down for him to go to sleep), something extraordinary had happened, something that had only happened twice in Tony's life.

He'd looked at Bruce and realized he had a best friend.

Back in college, Rhodey had befriended him, protected him (mostly from himself), and honestly believed in his ideas. That was such a novel trifecta for Tony that he had latched onto his classmate like a remora… and Rhodey hadn't minded. So that was his first best friend. Then came Iron Man, and the colonel's ties to the military had to come first, and somewhere along the way he had gone from "Best Friend" to simply "Friend."

Pepper had been in that position for even less time. They had tried ( _she_ had tried), even had a relationship for three months, but… it wasn't right. She didn't have the endless reservoir of patience necessary to deal with his constantly racing mind.

She had tried to _fix him,_ which he appreciated, but she had tried to fix _everything._ Not just the awful panic that would wake him in the middle of the night, not just the fear of water, not just the completely oblivious attitude when it came to organizing his life.

No, Pepper had gone all out. She had tried to fix the times when his mind went so fast that he had to get his ideas out or he couldn't concentrate on anything, and the way he pushed the limits of science constantly, and the three-day lab binges when he lived on coffee and genius.

She had tried to make him _normal,_ or at least closer to normal than he was comfortable with being. She had wanted a nine-to-five genius. He had called off the relationship.

It hadn't exactly helped that he had been too scared to reveal his secret to her. There was a _reason_ for that. Tony knew that Pepper wouldn't have liked it, it was just another step he was taking that went past all lines of reason, and she liked him to stay inside those lines.

So there went his second best friend.

And then there was _Bruce._

And Bruce took his secret and his eyes lit up as he asked a million questions, pushing in all the right places, backing off when he saw Tony was uncomfortable, asking to see the blueprints for the arc reactor.

Bruce hadn't been dismayed when Tony told him he would take those plans to his grave.

He hadn't asked why. Tony hadn't had to tell the terrifying story of Obadiah, the one person who had discovered his secret, and the feeling of his heart being ripped out of his chest. Only the backup arc reactor, the old one, the one he kept hidden in the lab while he planned to destroy it, had saved his life.

Bruce saw his three-day lab binges and joined him, making sure he ate something and listening to his ideas and making some of them better. He dove in without reservation, trusting Tony's brilliant mind, honestly believing that something would come out of even the craziest ideas.

It was Bruce who started plucking drinks out of Tony's hand one night and replacing them with glasses of water. He wouldn't do it with every glass the inventor picked up, but he'd do it just often enough that Tony didn't go to bad completely smashed (and didn't wake up with a killer hangover). Natasha's eyes had widened noticeably when Tony made no move to stop his friend.

Honestly, it seemed like _everyone_ was surprised at that, especially since Bruce hadn't even been looking at Tony the first time it had happened. No words had been exchanged. Tony had simply picked up what he thought was a glass of scotch, glanced at his fellow scientist in surprise, and shrugged it off.

It wasn't so much that learning Tony's secret had changed Bruce's opinion of him. Instead it had been a sign that Tony trusted him, and that had been the only missing piece in the puzzle that was their strange friendship.

So, Tony considered telling Bruce Banner about Iron Man something very important: the best decision of his life. It wasn't saying much, but he did have quite a few contenders for that spot, including his call to stop the weapons division of Stark Industries.

Because Bruce Banner only held him closer once he knew.

* * *

He wasn't sure what to expect now that Clint knew his secret, whether he'd act differently, and if so, towards which version of him? The man, or the mask?

The answer was both. In battle, little inside jokes slipped through the comms without anyone else knowing, but it sure cheered Tony up. It was when he was out of the suit, though, that the biggest change happened.

Clint started trusting him.

The first time he asked for help, Tony nearly had a heart attack. They were in the middle of "The Princess Bride" when the archer winced suddenly and asked him to pause the movie.

"What's up, Feathers, is Inigo Montoya coming for you?" Tony peered at Clint's hand. "Nope, only five fingers."

He earned a smile, but only for an instant, and then words were tumbling out. "Are you capable of hacking into SHIELD?"

Tony could only stare for a moment, then he shrugged. Best to be honest when an agent was grilling you, he had learned that long ago, unless it had to do with the Iron Man identity. He swallowed his pride and said, "I can't alone, but JARVIS can."

Clint met his eyes steadily. "Follow-up question: can you hack into SHIELD for me?"

"What the _fuck_ ," was his immediate response, followed almost immediately by, "What do you need me to find?"

"It's not finding anything. I need you to go in and change something in my file," he admitted slowly, then glanced down as he said, "and not ask me why."

Tony smirked. "I can do that, Mr. Secret Agent. What am I changing?"

"I need you to change my," his breath hitched and he glanced away, wincing. "Can you change my psych eval? And Natasha's?"

Eyebrows were raised, but the only questions he asked were, "More crazy or less crazy? And when do you want it backdated to?"

"Um." Clint looked honestly surprised that he'd agreed. "Less. Uh, Wednesday. And," his face turned stormy, "make sure neither of us are supposed to see Doctor Mark Wilde ever again."

"I can do that. Well. I can't, but JARVIS can, right buddy?" He waved a vague hand at the ceiling. "It'll be done by the time Montoya manages to avenge his father."

"Indeed, sir." JARVIS spoke without a trace of trepidation, an emotion he was fully capable of conveying if he really wanted to. "Would you like fries with that?"

Tony snorted. His AI never failed to surprise him. "We have popcorn, J. Play movie." The picture on the screen resumed, and Clint stole the bowl of popcorn.

Neither of them spoke again until JARVIS quietly interrupted the on-screen wedding to announce, with very little fanfare, "Modifications complete."

"See? Montoya didn't even kill the guy yet," Tony mumbled around a mouthful of popcorn. "This is why AI is going to be the technology that revolutionizes the planet, mark my words."

All the tension that Tony hadn't even noticed left Clint's body all at once. "Cue Natasha texting me, in three, two, one…" his phone went off. "Right on schedule."

"That was just uncanny. JARVIS, play movie." Tony leaned back. He didn't ask what Natasha said, what Clint texted back a moment later, or what they were talking about for the entire rest of the movie. That was classified information, judging by the smile on Clint's face.

He never checked to see exactly what "Doctor Wilde" had written about either of them. After all, for all the questions Clint had asked about the Iron Man suit, _why keep it a secret_ wasn't among them. If Clint didn't need to know that, Tony didn't need to know this.

What he did know was that only four people knew each secret. In this case, it was him, Clint, JARVIS and Natasha, because Clint told Natasha practically _everything._

So, the first time he was surprised by someone figuring out his big secret, it was because he hadn't really expected anyone else to beat their friendly resident superspy.

Yet somehow it was Thor, not Natasha, who was the next to glimpse the man behind the mask.

Of course, it was still all Nat's fault.

 **A/N - I was going to make Natasha the next chapter, but then I had *an idea.* And *the idea* kinda took over my brain. So. There's that.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N - Thor's chapter (which is actually almost entirely about Nat because I can't write Thor to save my life) is done! This part is like 3k words and I still wrote another chapter after this that wraps things up with this one, so, suffice it to say *the idea* for this chapter really did take over my brain.**

 **Enjoy, friends! :3**

* * *

Technically, SHIELD couldn't _order_ them to do anything potentially fatal. There were many, many times Tony wanted to speak up about missions they were sent on. The problem was, SHIELD absolutely could and absolutely _would_ order Clint and Natasha on those missions, with or without backup.

There was, of course, no way Tony was going to let Clint go get himself killed in some freak ice storm over northern Canada just because SHIELD thought it would make the perfect cover. The Avengers always went, no matter how dangerous it got.

And never mind that the quinjet wasn't really built for an ice storm this severe, because hey, it hadn't looked like it was going to get _this_ bad when they were sent out. Now did they see the Hydra base, or not?

"No, we don't, and we're not likely to see much of _anything_ in this weather." Clint wrestled with the controls, trying to keep their transportation steady in the air, all while using the radio. "Sir, if we don't bail, pretty soon ice is going to form in places we really don't want it to go. I don't think we'll find the base before we drop out of the sky."

A sigh from whatever damn Level Eight agent was commanding this operation. "Can't you just have Iron Man get out and push, or something?"

"He really can't," Tony drawled, "seeing as even this amazing suit of mine won't keep an entire quinjet in the air. But I'm sure you knew that, right Agent?"

The agent growled. He had not, apparently, known that. "Fine, Barton, I'm calling it off. Get your tail feathers back to base and get in for a debriefing."

"Roger that," Clint said calmly. "Heading back toward the base now, sir. ETA is twenty-seven minutes, longer if conditions continue to worsen."

"Don't make it longer," snapped the man, and honestly, who the hell were SHIELD headhunters hiring these days? Tony hadn't been fit to be an Avenger, but this guy could _order them around,_ and with that kind of attitude?

Clint ground his teeth. The quinjet jolted through the ice storm another few meters.

Then, because Tony's day _really needed_ to get worse, it plummeted out of the sky.

* * *

"Shit! Everyone bail! Thor, grab Natasha, Iron Man get Hawk-" Steve was barking out orders one second, and the next he was tumbling out of the plane. Tony could only wince and hope that he was going to land in a nice soft snowdrift. Bruce just shrugged, looked at them, and hopped out of the plane.

" _Don't land too close to me…"_ was his parting shout.

Then something inside the quinjet broke with a loud crash, the whole thing rolled sideways, and they all tumbled and fell out and away. All Tony could see was that Thor had a grip on Clint's arm, so it looked like they were switching partners. Lucky him.

Natasha always yelled when she fell, the simple cry of " _Catch me!"_ and Tony spotted her easily. Pouring power into his boots, he dove to pluck her right out of the storm of debris that used to be the quinjet's tail. "Are you hurt?"

"Don't think so," she replied, shouting above the wind. "Scratch on my arm. Let's get the hell out of here, okay?"

He hesitated, and she frowned up at him. "Natasha, look around." The ice storm was violently increasing, and turning to sleet and freezing rain. "We have to find shelter. You stay touching this metal for long, you're dead."

"Sounds fun," she muttered, and curled herself into as small a ball as possible. "Clint flew us past a cave a minute ago," she remembered.

"Awesome. I'll try to retrace our steps before this gets any worse. Just hold on and try not to touch the armor with your bare skin, okay?"

He was really glad he'd managed to solve the icing problem that had caused him to nearly die during the Mark II's test flight. If the defrosters weren't working at full power, not only would they crash, but the cold metal would probably give Natasha hypothermia nearly instantly.

She stayed pretty quiet, and so did he, only speaking up when he saw the cave ahead of them through the sleet. "Hold on, we're landing."

He couldn't say he was looking forward to spending any length of time trapped in a cave, but it really was their best option for shelter. He flew them in, relieved when the constant sound of rain and sleet on his suit stopped. It could never punch through, but the ice pellets that had struck Natasha had left tiny red marks on her arms and face.

"Nice landing." She slipped out of his arms easily, proving that she had managed to keep her skin away from the frigid metal. "I don't suppose you have any firestarters in that suit?"

He shrugged. "Sure, my gauntlets can do it if there's anything to burn. Want me to go see if there's anything farther back?" He gestured to the shadowy recesses of the hole they'd taken shelter in, repressing a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.

"No, let's go together. We have no way to know how big it is, better to not get separated." She cast an appraising glance at his suit. "Is that insulated?"

"It has interior heating," he admitted. "I'll be fine as long as the power lasts, which should be for days if I don't do any flying, so… yeah, I'm fine. You?"

It was a stupid question. She was _soaked,_ and already shivering. The Black Widow uniform was designed for fighting prowess, not for comfort in bitter temperatures. She had thrown a jacket on over it this time, luckily, but still the thin fabric would take its toll before too long. Still, she nodded. "I'll be all right if I keep moving."

At least she was wearing sensible shoes. "Exploring the cave it is?"

"Right." She led the way around the first corner… only to be confronted with a dead end right away. Natasha blinked. "Well, that's unfortunate."

Tony could only suggest, "I guess we just wait here until the storm lets up?"

She nodded. It wasn't like they actually had any choice, Tony could hear the rhythmic pounding of the sleet on the rock outside and the wind howling. There was no way to fly Natasha out when she couldn't touch the suit for more than a minute before hypothermia set in.

"I can't get any signal through the storm anymore. We'll have to wait for it to let up before I can call for pickup," he let her know. She just nodded again and started to pace.

Tony was hoping the storm would disappear as quickly as it had gathered, but as time went on it became evident that he was hoping in vain. "JARVIS," he asked quietly inside his helmet, "What's the temperature right outside the suit?"

His AI took only a moment to reply. "Sir, the temperature has decreased from negative twenty to negative twenty-five degrees over the time you have been inside the cave."

"Oh." Safe in his suit, he hadn't realized just how freezing the environment was becoming. If they hadn't been sheltered from the wind, Natasha would already be hypothermic, no doubt. "Nat, let me see your fingers, okay?"

To his surprise, she agreed and walked over. Her hands had been clenched throughout her pacing, but when she uncurled them, he could see that the tips of her fingers were pale yellow. She winced. "I can still feel them. They sting."

"Early stages of frostbite," he heard from JARVIS and repeated to Natasha. "You'll let me know if anything changes?"

She nodded curtly and returned to pacing, faster now, trying to keep her core temperature out of the danger zone. JARVIS, though, gave him estimates based on her size, the temperature, and the fact that she had been out in the rain. He didn't like the numbers.

He _really_ didn't like the numbers the first time he saw Natasha stumble.

* * *

It was just a little sway in her walking, she leaned against the wall for a moment to steady herself but pulled away from the cold stone almost immediately. Tony's breath caught in his throat. Natasha looked back at him, saw him watching her, and smiled. "I'm all right. Is the storm letting up at all?"

"A little bit," he replied quietly, "but at this rate it'll be another two hours before I can get a signal, and visibility is still next to nothing."

She knew what that meant. If he flew away for help, he wouldn't find the cave again, not until it was too late. "All right. Two hours, huh? I can do that."

According to JARVIS, though Tony had already suspected, two more hours wasn't something _anyone_ could do. Determination would only get you so far against hypothermia.

"Hey, Iron Man, you still alive in there?" After he didn't move for at least twenty minutes, Natasha raised her eyebrows at him.

"Just thinking, Nat." The faceplate couldn't smile reassuringly, that was one problem. "So, how are your fingers feeling? Toes? Nose?"

She shrugged. "Intermediate stages of frostbite. Shiny, hard to the touch. I'm going to have some really annoying blisters when this is over, but I'm all right." She smiled at him, trying to reassure _him_ even though he was the one completely safe in this situation. It would have been more effective if some of her words hadn't run together like she was drunk.

"Nat, are you feeling stiff?" Her smile faded. She sighed and nodded. "Tired? Getting a little off balance?"

"Iron Man, I know the symptoms of hypothermia," she said gently. "It's okay. I'll just keep moving, do what I can, and we'll wait for the storm to let up. No need to worry about me."

On the one hand, she was right. On the other hand, he was watching her stumbling back and forth, and JARVIS was telling him she didn't have that long left before she lost consciousness.

The storm really was letting up. The freezing rain was still pouring down, but at least it was a little lighter. The wind was dying down a little bit. Not fast enough, though.

He didn't really get scared, though. Not until the first time Natasha sat down. " _Nat!"_ He was at her side in an instant, but he couldn't actually touch her. The metal fingers of the suit would only hurt her more. "Natasha, get up!"

"Sorry," she slurred, and was on her feet in an instant. Even though his heart was pounding, Tony couldn't help but be impressed. She was in the late stages of hypothermia and she was still pushing herself. "I'm okay."

"Right, yeah. You're all right, Nat, just gotta keep moving." He walked with her, then, making sure he was just out of range for her to touch him if she needed something to lean on. She stayed on her feet, though, for only five more minutes.

She got up only once more. Then, a minute or two later when she stumbled again, her eyes drifted shut and stayed shut.

* * *

"Natasha, get _up._ " He clenched his fists and leaned over until he was right next to her ear before shouting, " _Nat!"_ as loud as he could.

She still didn't open her eyes.

"All right, JARVIS," he instructed. He always had a backup plan, though this one was going to be uncomfortable to say the least. "Open the suit."

As soon as the first plate came off, he felt the full force of the cold air hit him and was shivering instantly. A stream of swear words tumbled from his mouth as the suit was pulled away from him and his body screamed in protest.

" _Jeez,_ I'm done with winter forever," he muttered as he struggled to get Natasha upright. During the twenty minutes he had told her he was 'just thinking,' he had been reprogramming the suit with JARVIS to allow her to be inside without the safety protocols activating. Now there was only the matter of supplying power.

Obviously he couldn't just pull out his reactor and plug it into the suit, not without starting to die almost immediately from the missing battery. Instead, he did the next best thing and ran emergency wires from his chest to the suit.

"All right, J, can you fire up the heaters gradually?" The last few plates of the suit closed around Natasha's unconscious body, and the helmet turned to nod at him. "Great. Let me know when you've managed to send a signal through the storm, yeah?"

He was shaking violently within minutes, but unlike Natasha he couldn't easily pace back and forth because he had to be careful not to jostle the delicate connection between the suit and the reactor. He should really make suits with reactors built in that he could remote-pilot. That was a mechanical problem for another day.

On second thought, he really had nothing better to do while he was slowly freezing to death, so he started designing the possible suit in his head. JARVIS kept up a running conversation about the storm's conditions and Nat's vital signs, and Tony replied with possible blueprint ideas and asked his AI to make notes about interfaces and technology.

All in all, it wasn't bad until his fingers started hurting. It wasn't horrible until he stopped being able to feel his fingers or toes at all. Eventually JARVIS started sending a signal out into the storm, hoping it would reach far enough at that point for someone to pick it up.

Tony knew the symptoms of hypothermia, too, and he wasn't that surprised to find himself developing them faster than Natasha had. After all, he had a _hollow metal cylinder_ shoved into the center of his chest, he was definitely at a disadvantage. Not to mention the fact that he couldn't move around at all to warm himself up.

"Sir?" JARVIS jolted him out of some sort of daze a few minutes later. At least, he thought it had only been a few minutes. "If you remain standing, you will jolt the wires from the suit as you try to keep your balance."

He could read the emotions in the AI's voice. It wasn't that he didn't care that Tony was freezing to death and couldn't even stand on his own, it was that he knew Tony wouldn't want Natasha to die just because of a few pulled wires. "Right." Tony slowly lowered himself to a sitting position, and the suit lowered with him. One wire did come out, but he managed to put it back even with his hands numb.

"Shall we discuss your ideas for the new suit further, sir?" JARVIS prompted him gently. "It is important that you remain engaged with a problem."

Slowly, Tony regained his train of thought about the armor. "Right, so, I was thinking it would be better to have a 3-d interface instead of just a screen, so that I could see if anything was sneaking up on the suit. Do you think I should keep the faceplate or have it be faceless so everyone could tell I wasn't actually in the suit?"

"Knowing you, sir, you'll find an emergency that requires you to fly the remote suit. You may want to keep the faceplate merely for that emergency."

He chuckled, but it hurt his chest. He hunched his shoulders and took shallow breaths until the pain passed. "I guess you're right, J."

Those were the last words he spoke for ten minutes, while JARVIS became increasingly desperate to get him to respond. At some point he probably passed out, but he couldn't really tell. He wasn't that cold anymore, just tired.

* * *

"Sir, I'm getting a response to the signal," the AI finally exclaimed. "They've locked on to our location, but with the storm so dangerous there's only one option for sending us help…"

That got through the fog in his head. "What?" The word was barely recognizable, but JARVIS seemed to understand.

As it turned out, though, he didn't have to answer. The flash of lightning outside told the whole story, and Tony couldn't help but smile. He wasn't sure if his frozen lips had actually managed to form the expression, but it was the thought that counted. Of course, who else could fly though a storm unmolested by the wind or rain?

"Man of-" Thor burst into their little dead-end tunnel and stared in confusion.

"Nat's in… J, tell him." Tony could feel darkness encroaching on the edges of his mind again and knew he wouldn't be able to get the words out.

He could only listen as JARVIS explained that Natasha had passed out and was inside the suit, that Tony was severely cold, and that the arc reactor was the only thing keeping Natasha warm. "Prince Thor, if you disconnect those two wires, the suit will have enough energy to keep the interior warm for twenty minutes at most."

Thor blinked. Luckily, he seemed to take everything in stride. Even more fortunately, he seemed to understand JARVIS's explanation. "It will not take me more than fifteen minutes to return," he promised. Tony tried to do the math, figure out how long the suit would be without power before Natasha was back at base, but the numbers weren't coming.

Apparently JARVIS had given the ok, though, because the next thing Tony knew he was being bundled in Thor's thick red cloak.

The last thing he remembered was wondering if it was wrong to be happy Natasha hadn't woken up at all when Tony was outside the suit.

* * *

 **A/N - So, I looked up a lot of temperatures, symptoms, and basic information for this on how cold it would have to be, etc. Also, this was originally going to be a hailstorm, until I actually looked up hailstorms and realized that hail mostly doesn't form in weather as cold as the weather in this chapter. So, ha! I DO RESEARCH!**

 **That said, my research consisted mostly of picking numbers out of my head, so if you're a meteorologist and you hate me now, please let me know what I did wrong.**

 **Have a nice day!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N - The aftermath of last chapter, and introducing the next character who will discover Tony's big secret... and yet again it isn't Natasha. I feel bad for her, really, but hahahahahahaha**

When he woke up, he panicked for a minute. He couldn't remember how he got to wherever he was, which meant it had to do with the Avengers, but his mask definitely _wasn't_ on, so that meant someone would have had to…

His shaky internal logic petered out when he saw Bruce and Clint sitting in chairs by his bedside. Of course, those two who already knew, they would have protected him.

"Hey." Clint was the one to notice he was awake, and quickly moved his chair closer to the bed. He didn't take Tony's hand, which made sense since a cursory glance proved it was wrapped in thick bandages. "How are you feeling?"

Tony considered the question. "Uh, foggy. What happened, how did I get here?" It was taking him too long to figure out the last thing he remembered.

"Thor flew you in half dead without your suit," Bruce said calmly. "You were dying of hypothermia and had a bad case of frostbite. Clint had to do CPR, so now you have a nice set of cracked ribs. You're an _idiot._ "

"Hey, whoa, I am a certified genius," he complained. His brow furrowed. "I'm… a little cloudy on the details, but I'm sure I was brilliant."

Clint mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "Well, you're not wrong." He raised his voice and quickly explained, "Thor flew out again immediately and brought back Natasha, who was in your suit. It ran out of power like two minutes out, but she was actually a little better off than you when they got it off her. She still nearly died on the table."

 _Now_ he remembered. "Oh, jeez, yeah, the quinjet fell out of the sky, there was this cave she said we'd passed on the way, so we…" he blinked a couple of times. "She still almost died?"

"So did you." Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Being out in the cold with metal in your chest is, apparently, not the most genius move I've ever heard of." The small smile on his face proved he wasn't actually criticizing.

Tony smiled. "Yeah, but I rewired the arc reactor in negative double digit temperatures without any gloves on, so I definitely get engineering brownie points for that." He had a sudden thought and his face paled. "Er, so… Thor knows, huh?"

"He didn't make a big deal about it. Came straight to me when he brought you in, wouldn't answer any of Steve's questions." Bruce smiled. "Honestly, I think he looked impressed."

"And is this room locked down?" He shot a glance toward Clint. "If Natasha's awake and this room isn't locked down I will be extremely disappointed in you."

The archer just laughed and assured him that nobody would be getting into this room without his say-so. "Besides, while Nat's now more curious than ever, I don't think she would consider finding you in your hospital bed to stalk you after you just saved her life."

"Okay, you might have a point." He was about to gesture when pain shot through his hand. "Er… Bruce, how bad was the frostbite?" It was a question he had been avoiding, because as an inventor, his fingers were the most important part of his body besides his brain.

Bruce seemed to understand his anxiety, because he was quick to reassure him. "Don't worry, you'll be fine once the blisters heal. You're lucky, just the tips of your fingers were starting to blacken. You have a very annoying and painful recovery, but you'll have full dexterity back."

"Great. That's good." He glanced at Clint. "Same for Nat?"

"Same for Nat," he confirmed, "and she's already desperate to get the hell out of here. We're going to pretend the doctors are insisting on keeping you, so that nobody sees Tony Stark with bandages on his fingers. According to records, you're currently at the Malibu house, backdated to four hours before we even got the mission."

Tony grinned. "You two are good at keeping my secrets for me." He rolled his eyes. "Apparently, in fact, you're better than I am at it."

Bruce chuckled. "It doesn't count, there's no way we're saving someone's life by revealing your identity. Besides, it's been how long since you built the suit, and only three people have found out. Well, five counting you and JARVIS, but you two _build_ the suits."

"I think I should get points just for somehow still managing not to tell Natasha," he muttered, and Clint decided that was probably fair.

He ended up staying away from the public eye for a month, though he made two appearances at company offices near Malibu, keeping his hands in his pockets or in one case wearing a synthetic skin mesh he and Bruce developed to keep his condition a secret. It was longer than that before his fingers and toes were completely healed, but once the synthetic skin was done, there was no reason to stay away.

During that time that he was away, though, Iron Man was still present. Tony would fly down any time there was a battle, and sometimes he would stay in New York for days, locked in his room or his lab to disguise the fact that he was actually there.

Keeping a secret identity was _exhausting_ when you were injured, he was learning.

"Man of Iron!" Thor greeted him enthusiastically the first time he entered a fight, and Natasha waved even though she was engaged in a fight at the time.

"Hey, guys! Missed you too. Did they fire that idiot handler who stuck us out there in the first place, does anyone know?" Tony already knew the answer. They had. He had assured it.

Natasha's smile came across in her voice. "Oh, yeah. The guy was terrified, Nick Fury himself stepped in and yelled at him for a good hour before transferring him to janitorial supervision and making a note in his file that he wasn't allowed to do anything important. Ever."

"Serves him right." Tony mocked the man's voice. " _Iron Man, get out and push!"_

Then there wasn't a whole lot of time for talk, because they were a bit busy actually fighting the weird reptile-like soldiers who seemed intent on capturing any child wearing green. Tony was just happy to be back in the suit.

Natasha jumped off a building again, and he had to nearly burn out his right boot to catch her. "Seriously, you do this far too often! Just take the stairs!"

A second later, the building she had been on collapsed.

"Never mind, please continue your habit of jumping off high places," he squeaked. She just smirked at him and went back to fighting as soon as her feet touched the ground.

They staggered back, exhausted, at a little after two in the morning. Everyone was too tired to even make it past the couch, including Tony, who collapsed in an armchair while still enclosed in the suit.

It wasn't the first time he had joined the team for their little get-togethers after hard fights, but with two-thirds of the team knowing his secret, it was slightly odd.

"So, Iron Man." Steve was sketching with a charcoal pencil, what he was drawing Tony couldn't tell. "What does Stark think about three people finding out your secret identity at once?"

It took him a minute to realize that he was serious. Steve never knew that Tony told Bruce, but what about Clint? _Right._ He had told them all that Clint was unconscious. Of course.

"Well, let me put it this way." He shrugged. "He wasn't _happy_ about the breach of contract, but he decided to let me keep flying the suit, so that means he wasn't that mad. Honestly, I think he was just glad I didn't break it again."

Natasha raised her eyebrows. "Does he really get that mad when you break the suits?"

Tony remembered coming back from a battle and realizing he would have to rebuild an entire suit just because of some stupid acid-spitting robot. "Those suits are his best invention. He gets mad when anything happens to them, especially when it's something stupid, a hit that could have been avoided." He had a thought and smiled. "The exception being when he was going to build a new one anyway, in which case I think he's just glad to have an excuse."

"Sounds harsh," Steve said. "I mean, he makes you keep your identity a secret, you have to be on call around the clock for him and for us, and he gets mad at _you_ when something breaks the suit? It doesn't seem like safety is as important in the new models, either."

Tony had to stop and think about that. "I… didn't mean he got mad at _me._ He just kind of gets mad in general." Then his brain caught up with the last part of the sentence. "Safety? Safety hasn't really been as much of a concern. It's not meant as a literal suit of armor, it's a weapon. Like Clint's bow and arrows aren't designed primarily to get him out of tight spots, they're mostly to take down whatever stupid thing we're fighting."

The archer nodded, but Natasha rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but you'd think he would notice how much you get hurt in fights. I mean, it doesn't show through the armor, but I bet you have a mean bruise where that lizard hit you today."

"Right here?" Tony tapped his stomach. "That won't be so bad. I'm just pretty glad this was over before sunrise." He tried to change the subject, tired of basically defending himself in a roundabout way.

"Yeah, I was about ready to find an abandoned building and take a nap," Clint put in his two cents, going with the subject change. "I'm just glad SHIELD has pulled me off missions for a while, everything and its mother seems to be attacking New York lately."

Steve had a look in his eyes that Tony didn't particularly like at that comment, and disappeared almost immediately. Natasha got up and followed him a minute later.

Tony relaxed immediately when Clint gave him the signal that meant Natasha was actually gone. "So, is it me, or do they hate me more lately?"

Bruce shrugged. "Well, it isn't you, but I don't think they _hate_ you. I think they're just worried about how tired you've been lately."

"What?" Tony raised his eyebrows. "That's just because my company has been piling work on my desk lately. They really want me to start making weapons again, but if they can't have that they're going to squeeze every last idea out of me to make up for the lost profit."

"Yeah, but Steve doesn't know that," Clint pointed out. "He thinks it's you piling work on Iron Man, and that your double life is being an Avenger and a bodyguard."

"Lady Natasha also appears worried," Thor chimed in. "I believe it had something to do with the fact that you claimed Stark recalled you for a month immediately after you were injured."

Tony nodded slowly. "Right. I need to start coming up with better excuses, I guess." He smirked slightly and remembered one of the most recent ones he had thought of. "I could say that Stark finally gave me a vacation."

"I still find it hilarious that you're still keeping it a secret," Clint admitted. "I mean, it's just Natasha and Steve left. How long do you plan on-"

"As long as I possibly can," Tony interrupted. He offered no explanation, as usual, and as usual Clint didn't demand one. "I do seriously need to get some sleep, though. The chestplate of this armor is going to have to be replaced, and Rhodey is coming over tomorrow."

The rest of them understood when he needed to get out of an awkward discussion. They let him make his excuses and head to bed, knowing that if they were lucky he would get two hours' sleep before getting up to work on the latest Stark Industries project.

They were looking forward to meeting Rhodey, though. Tony had hinted that he wouldn't be too angry if the colonel finally discovered what they had all started referring to as "The Thing."

In truth, they were hoping Tony was planning to tell him.

Which he was considering, if only so they could fly together.

 **A/N - Fly together? Hm... I probably didn't make this very clear in previous chapters, but the events of Iron Man 2 were altered a** ** _lot_** **by Tony keeping his secret identity. Like, Rhodey-wasn't-really-involved levels of altered.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N - College classes started today. That has nothing to do with Rhodey, but here, have some Rhodey to celebrate.**

Rhodey arrived at noon the next day in a whirlwind of introductions and trying to get Tony to eat something remotely healthy.

"Seriously, a banana does not constitute 'lunch,' Tony! We've talked about this, if you can eat it on the way to the lab it isn't a full meal. Come on, sit down, eat some actual food." Rhodey pulled leftovers from the fridge, mostly Chinese takeout. "Jeez, do _any_ of you eat healthy?"

Bruce smiled. "I have been known to have a balanced diet. Unfortunately, Tony says my food is better suited for some form of herbivorous farm or woodland animal."

"It's rabbit food, Brucie. Everything you eat is half vegetable, it's horrendous. And don't even get me started on his lack of snacks in our cupboards. I mean, even Thor has a thing for Pop-Tarts, but Bruce just has a few herbal teas and a box of granola bars for emergencies."

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Banner. I've heard a lot about you, and you have no idea how glad I was to hear that someone around here has sense."

Bruce laughed and shook his hand. "Call me Bruce, please. It's the least I can do to keep him from blowing himself up, when he lets me use the best lap equipment on this half of the continent. You should see what he's been building lately."

"Yes. Perfect. That's a good idea." Tony perked up and rubbed his hands together. "Follow me, Rhodey. I have a great idea for something we can do today."

The two friends disappeared into the elevator. Bruce ended up staying behind, for fear that something would blow up in his face.

"Right. So, this is my lab," Tony bypassed the door entirely, "that's Bruce's lab, and _this_ is where the magic _really_ happens." They arrived at the last door, which simply had a glowing blue picture of the arc reactor to label the door. Tony put his hand in the center of the circle, and the door clicked open.

Parts of Iron Man suits were scattered around the workshop, a dark arc reactor lay in pieces on the center table, and holograms lit up every corner.

"Welcome to the Iron Man lab. Nifty, isn't it? This place is actually better equipped than my regular lab," because he spent most of his time in this one, in or out of the suit, "and only Iron Man and myself can enter, plus whoever we're with."

"Wow. Is that the latest one?" Rhodey pointed to a gleaming red and gold armor lying on a table on the left side of the room.

Tony shook his head. "That one is a work in progress. The casing is finished, but the wiring is going to be complex and the programming more so. I'm trying to make one that... Iron Man can pilot remotely, not just JARVIS." He had almost used the first person.

"That's actually wicked cool," approved Rhodey. "With him being an Avenger as well as your bodyguard, I can see how that would come in handy to be in two places at once."

Well, that was one way to use it, sure. Tony was hoping to use Iron Man while he was on the other side of the world, of course, to reinforce his cover.

"So, Tony, when are you going to let me actually fly one of these things?" It was a question he asked every time he got to see Iron Man, though always with a teasing smile to show Tony he wasn't actually pressing.

"Sorry, these are all keyed only to Iron Man's genetic code. Well, and mine, of course," he added as an afterthought.

Then he let a smile play on his face and pressed a button to turn one of the wall panels around, revealing a very differently built suit.

" _This one,_ on the other hand…" Tony grinned at the look of utter shock on his friend's face. "Introducing the new and improved Mark II armor, which you seemed to like the best. This has more armor and more firepower than a normal suit, but it's slower and less maneuverable."

"Jeez, Tony." Rhodey stared. "Can I actually fly it?"

"Yeah, let's take it out for a spin right now," he suggested. "It'll be a good chance for me to test my repairs to the Mark X, its chestplate had to be replaced after Iron Man got hit by a lizard with really bad breath. At least, that's what he told me."

They only passed Clint on their way to the roof, and he joined them as soon as he saw what was happening. His only comment was, "This I _have_ to see!"

"Calm down, Feathers, it's just a quick test flight. Well, honestly, we'll probably be flying for hours because these things are just too fun, but it's _supposed_ to be just a quick test flight."

He had JARVIS fly Rhodey out at first, until he could figure out how to use the stabilizers. He'd learned his lesson about how difficult it was flying for the first time, and he had the feeling his best friend would _not_ appreciate crashing into ceilings and being sprayed with fire extinguishers.

To his surprise, with a little help from the AI, Rhodey learned incredibly fast. They whooped and flew circles around each other and Tony taught his friend how to operate the weapons, having JARVIS block the suit from _actually_ firing.

They were up there for at least three hours. A few times they buzzed past the windows of the Tower, waving at startled employees and Avengers.

"I cannot _believe_ this, this is _awesome_!" Rhodey said at least fourteen times. The suit really wasn't as maneuverable as Tony's, but he did a good job keeping up.

"I've been calling it the War Machine," admitted the inventor. "The first time you saw the armor, remember? That's what you called it."

His friend laughed brightly. "Remember when you complained for nearly an hour about the press calling it the _Iron Man_ armor, when it wasn't even iron?"

"Well, at least they realized the pilot was male," he observed, diving close to the ground before pulling up again. "They could have checked with me to make sure first, though."

"Oh, did I just get a hint to the elusive identity of your bodyguard?" They spun upward toward the very top of the Tower, the same place the portal had been back during the Battle of New York. His friend didn't pry any further, just said, "I hope he's better than you at flying that."

"I'd say so, he's had a lot more practice," Tony lied. "You would have been a great candidate if it hadn't been for the whole _you already have a job_ thing."

JARVIS interrupted their discussion by contacting Tony inside his helmet. "A call is coming in over the Avengers' comms."

"Iron Man, are you active? We have a serious situation." Natasha was panting. "It involves acid and there are civilians right in the line of fire. We need backup, fast."

He calculated immediately, tuning out whatever Rhodey was saying about how cool the suit was. It would take him five minutes to get back to the lab, five minutes to pretend he had gotten out of the armor and Iron Man had gotten into it, and five more minutes to get back out and into the air. The battle was three minutes away. He flipped on the voice distorter.

"Iron Man here. I'll be there in twenty."

Clint's hissed words came across the line, the archer's voice tight like he was in pain. "Can you make it any faster? We can't wait twenty minutes."

They had only passed Clint on their way to the roof. Only Clint knew why it would be taking Tony that long to get to the battle.

There was a suggestion in the question, a suggestion Tony would have to follow if he wanted to get to the fight in time to save the civilians and his teammates.

 _Damn it._ "Be there in three, Clint. I hate you." He heard the archer's relieved laugh and it almost made up for the awkward moment that was about to come.

He cut the channel to the Avengers and turned off his Iron Man voice. JARVIS didn't even have to ask what he wanted, he just opened the channel to the War Machine suit again.

"Rhodey, the Avengers are in trouble. Do you want to help back them up?"

"Of course," the colonel responded immediately. "Do we have to swing by the lab so you can swap out with Iron Man first?"

A wry smile danced onto Tony's face. "I don't need to swap out with anyone. Follow me, and save your questions for after we save my teammates, yeah?"

" _Oh."_ Rhodey was quick to catch on, and quicker to turn the suit to follow Tony toward the battle. After a moment, though, he did ask one question. "Do the others know?"

"Bruce does, he's been helping me if I get hurt in a battle. Clint, too, he's been helping me hide it. And Thor, I keep forgetting because he never mentions it. Other than that, nobody knows."

"We are going to have serious words when this is over," his friend muttered, but then they were in sight of the battle and the only other thing he heard from inside the silver armor was a quick, "Holy _shit,_ they're in a tight spot."

They were just in the nick of time, too. Steve was completely surrounded by acid, and kept having to raise his shield against more attacks. His mobility was approximately zero. "All right, Rhodey, here's how this is gonna work. I'll pick up Cap, you land, turn to the biggest group of those _things_ you can find, and fire everything you've got."

"Sounds like fun," replied his friend, and they separated.

The _things_ in question looked mostly like robots, but there were definitely organic components, which meant they were dealing with a mad scientist. Whenever one of the creepy things was hit, it sprayed acid everywhere no matter where you hit it. Apparently Steve had been forced to defend himself and was now in a bit of distress.

"Hey, Capsicle." Tony dropped to the pavement, just barely remembering to switch his voice distorter back on. "Need a lift?"

"You certainly got here fast." Steve clung to the armor as they lifted off and soared to a clear part of the street. Glancing up, the captain's face broke into a smile. "And brought backup."

He nodded. "I'm sorry not to clear it with you first, I was helping him test out his new suit when the call came in so I brought him along."

"Iron Man, I could use some backup… uh, never mind." Clint was perched on a statue as some of the robots clustered around the base, but his assailants were almost immediately blown to pieces by War Machine. "Iron Man, _Natasha_ could probably use some backup. I'm good."

Tony chuckled. Making Rhodey a suit had definitely been the right call. Of course, now he would have to repair _two_ suits from acid damage, but oh well.

War Machine, he could already tell, was going to be a _great_ superhero. He was already cleaning up most of the 'things' swarming him, trusting the suit to take a little acid without totally breaking down. Those he couldn't reach, or that were sneaking up behind him, Clint effortlessly picked off from his new sniping position.

In fact, Rhodey ended up taking care of most of the fighting between the two metal suits. Tony, with his greater mobility, was needed more to move his teammates around the battlefield and out of range of various acid puddles.

"All right, guys, I think the streets are clear." After two minutes without new assailants, Steve made the call to stand down. "We should get back to the tower, find Stark and get him tracking down whoever made these things."

Before Tony and his friend could take off, Natasha confronted them. "So, does War Machine have to keep _his_ identity a secret, too? Because I'm pretty sure we _all_ know who's under that helmet."

"War Machine is not under contract for Mr. Stark," Tony bluffed. "He has the choice of whether to operate anonymously."

"Oh, hell no. That is way too much work and I don't know how the hell you do it," Rhodey shot back immediately.

Tony just chuckled. "We're just regular humans outside these suits, Colonel Rhodes. That puts us in danger if our real identities ever get out. You're in the air force, though, so I guess you know what you're doing."

"So the whole _anonymous_ thing, that ends when your contract is up, right?" Steve seemed to get interested at the very mention of Iron Man's identity.

Faced with an awkward situation, Tony did what he did best, and twisted the truth to suit his needs. "Capsicle, once I retire, it's my choice whether to reveal my identity." Well, that was true enough, it wasn't like anyone was going to stop him. "The thing is… I won't be retiring for a long time, if I have any say in the matter."

Natasha squinted at him as if she was trying to read the gold faceplate. "So, if your identity gets out, you get replaced as pilot?"

"I'm not supposed to discuss the consequences of my contract, Nat." He wanted to end this conversation _now._ "Look, we'll meet you back at the tower. Colonel Rhodes, Mr. Stark will inform you of the details of your possession of the suit at a later time. Spoiler alert, though: you aren't allowed to let the Air Force reverse engineer it, and he'd really rather you didn't stick any Hammer Tech on it. Other than that, to paraphrase him, _it's your suit, just don't get killed."_

He took off, heading back toward the tower and hoping Natasha and Steve would get the hint and drop the subject.

In retrospect, he should have known that wasn't going to happen.

 **A/N - WAR MACHINE EXISTS. There, the plot holes I created from Iron Man 2 have been wrapped up ;)**


End file.
